Column shakes and swings during a stripping run
Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2020 12:45 pm
Hallo,
I finally did my first stripping run.
My column is very high and the cover of the kettle is not sufficiently strong to keep the system rigid. I suspend the elbow to the ceiling with some nylon ribbons. I should have reached good verticality, measured with a bubble level.
The power I apply to the electric stove, on which the kettle sits, is circa 1750W.
What I observe is that the columns shakes back and forth, it's as if there was an earthquake.
I suppose during a stripping run this is no big problem, but I do wonder whether it can undermine the correct working of the packing during the spirit run, when the column is packed.
The colums is 2" wide, 1 meter high, (plus a "window" element and the elbow on top) but the final condenser is a heavy one ("Gatling" type) and it might create some kind of instability on the system.
Whan can be the cause of this? I tend to think that 1800W is not such a power as to create any kind of strange turbulence inside the column, but maybe I am wrong. Next stripping run I will try with some power less, but it might begin being unnecessarily boring. Fast and dirty it should be, not slow and swinging.
Any help appreciated, as usual.
A video is here: (for reasons unknown to me, the video is mirrored, left side and right side are inverted).
I finally did my first stripping run.
My column is very high and the cover of the kettle is not sufficiently strong to keep the system rigid. I suspend the elbow to the ceiling with some nylon ribbons. I should have reached good verticality, measured with a bubble level.
The power I apply to the electric stove, on which the kettle sits, is circa 1750W.
What I observe is that the columns shakes back and forth, it's as if there was an earthquake.
I suppose during a stripping run this is no big problem, but I do wonder whether it can undermine the correct working of the packing during the spirit run, when the column is packed.
The colums is 2" wide, 1 meter high, (plus a "window" element and the elbow on top) but the final condenser is a heavy one ("Gatling" type) and it might create some kind of instability on the system.
Whan can be the cause of this? I tend to think that 1800W is not such a power as to create any kind of strange turbulence inside the column, but maybe I am wrong. Next stripping run I will try with some power less, but it might begin being unnecessarily boring. Fast and dirty it should be, not slow and swinging.
Any help appreciated, as usual.
A video is here: (for reasons unknown to me, the video is mirrored, left side and right side are inverted).